Monitoring for contaminants is a critical step during the production process in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. A frequent contaminant, endotoxin, can cause fever, inflammation, headache, nausea, and even death. Found in the cell wall of gram negative bacteria,endotoxin has routinely been detected by the sensitive and specific Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) assay. In the presence of endotoxins, LAL coagulates through an enzyme-mediated cascade, which has then been traditionally quantified based on gelation and turbidity.